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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Delta Blogger Event: The Whole Story

There is so much to say about my trip to Delta headquarters in Indianapolis; I'll try to keep it short and sweet without skipping any of the important details (and there are a lot of them!). My goal in this post is to show you the quality of Delta; the company, the employees and the products. This will be longer than my average posts, but stay with me, it's worth it.

Wednesday night, all the bloggers involved in the event met for a dinner with some Delta and MSL (the PR firm) employees. I'm a shy person, so going to that first dinner had me feeling anxious. The second I walked it, I relaxed. Everyone there was so wonderful and sweet. It was a great start to the trip!

Thursday morning, we were greeted with a round of applause as we walked into the building. They had all the employees clapping for us. What a sweet gesture and a warm welcome! That's Paula Warner with the microphone. She was our guide throughout our stay and it was a pleasure getting to know her.

Thursday morning, we headed into the Brizo showroom where Brian Nobbe (Director, Brizo Brand) introduced us to the brand and products. What impressed me most about these products is the thought that goes into every design. They aren't churning out faucets every few weeks - development of each design can take up to 18 months.

Let's take a look at Jason Wu's suite, Odin. The company has been working with Jason Wu since 2006 to develop a suite for the bathroom. It's a sleek, minimal design, but still has all the goodies:

SmartTouchPlus: lets you turn the faucet on and off with just one touch, or go completely hands free!

TempIQ: a small light at the base of the faucet tells you the temperature of the water; blue for cold, purple for warm, and red for hot. Brilliant!

I'll tell you what, after using touch20 technology for only a day - I'm hooked.

The Odin suite also comes with accessories for the bathroom. It's all so beautiful. I must admit, I was ready to grab them and run, but I restrained myself.

We had a chance to play with the chrome version of this unique faucet during the day on Thursday. What you may not know (I sure didn't until they told me) is that to complete this design they had to put everything under the deck. When you turn the handle, you are not actually controlling water, you are sending an electronic signal that tells the faucet to turn on the water. It's incredible and only Delta does it.

Along with getting a tour of the Brizo brand, we also got to know Delta. Josh Feldman (Product Manager, Delta Trade Kitchen) and Ali McKinney (Product Manager, Delta Trade Bath) showed us the Delta products and the technology they use. As I looked through my notes while writing this post, I tried to decided what you need to know about Delta - what I learned in Indianapolis has definitely changed the way I look at faucets.

One thing you definitely need to do is take a look at the Smart Solutions on the Delta website. You will not regret it.

I installed two faucets that day; one even had touch2o technology. I was a little worried about installing a faucet and was even more worried when I found out it had an electrical component; everything I know tells me that water and electricity do not mix. Delta has made it work.

Sarah (from Sarah M. Dorsey Designs) and I installed this faucet together and it was a breeze! This was actually the second faucet we installed that day. The first one was a faucet with touch2O technology. This second one used EZ Anchor technology (a system that lets you install the faucet from above instead of having to get on you back under the sink). I have never installed a faucet before, but installing this was a breeze.

Once I found out that touch2O technology ran on 4 AA batteries, I had one question: how long do these batteries last? Here's the good news: these batteries last 2-3 years!

We spent some time in the lab with a few engineers from Delta that took the time to explain the technology and the stories behind it. Joel Sawaski (Senior Electrical Engineer, R&D) and Bob Rodenbeck (Director, R&D) showed us the science behind touch2O and SmartTouchPlus technology. Then Paul Patton (Senior Product Development Manager, R&D) and Tony Spangler (Project Manager) helped us to understand H2Okinetics.

"H2Okinetic™ Technology sculpts water into a unique wave pattern, giving you the feeling of more water without using more water."

They can control the size of the water droplets: feels like you're doing more with less, bigger droplets retain heat, and feels more drenching.

This photo really explains it - on the left is a regular shower head. It has a lot of holes for the water, but you can see a space in the middle where no water is flowing (this is what I experience every day. It sucks). On the right is a shower head with H2Okinetics technology. The shower head only had 4 holes for the water, but there is no empty space.

Looking at the water using a strobe light, helped us to see the movement of the water. Do you see the zig-zag? That's the H2Okinetic technology in action. It's incredible that they were able to get the water to move without having a single moving part in the shower head.

Delta is a water conscious brand that proactively works to lower the flow rate without losing the pressure. Pressure is something that Delta has no control over. When you have bad water pressure, you tend the blame the shower head first (I'm definitely guilty of this). The pressure has nothing to do with the shower head and everything to do with where you live. With H2Okinetic technology, no matter your water pressure, Delta is able to give you the best shower while still lowering the flow rate. Government regulations state that flow rates cannot exceed 2.5 gallons per minutes - many of Delta's products work with 1.5 gallons per minutes. They're really ahead of the game. If your home is run on well water, like mine, you should really look into purchasing a Delta shower head with H2Okinetic technology.

All in all, Delta is a quality company with quality employees that produce quality products. And I'll tell you what - I'm a Delta buyer for life.

Thanks for sticking with me through this longer-than-normal post. If you have any more questions about Delta, please ask!

4 comments:

Speaking as one who lived in a log cabin in Alaska without any running water for the first 1 1/2 years of living there - I appreciate NOT just a good shower but just having running water. I'm really impressed with Delta...and not just because of the quality of their products (which are definitely awesome) but because they recognized the quality of you!

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